Deviants Read Online Free PDF

helmets as they push the man through a door in the dome. A strong wind swirls the dust in huge sheets, creating an eerie sound, like someone whistling into a microphone. One Comp shoves the exed man, and he stumbles to his knees. Dust flies up around him.
    Jayma gasps and grips my hand. The man covers his nose and mouth with his arm, but we all know it’s futile. Outside without a mask he can’t avoid inhaling the dust, and while his fate isn’t certain, it’s sealed. At this point he’s lucky if he’s destined to become a Shredder.
    I feel the urge to shout at the screen, to tell him to bend down and pull in as much dust as he can, to let it clog his lungs. Drowning on dust would be better than being alive for the torture.
    My hope doesn’t last long, and a pack of about ten Shredders swarms in, teeth bared, their skin a deep maroon that resembles dried meat.
    The Comps retreat and seal the door to Haven, and the man scrambles back and slams into the outside of the dome.The Shredders surround him in a tight semicircle, and the biggest one—a creature wearing a cowboy hat—opens his mouth in what looks like a roar, but we can’t hear over the squealing wind.
    Four Shredders rush forward and lift the man like he’s a feather, holding him by his limbs. The cowboy Shredder roars again and they drop the man, catching him just before he hits the dust. Leaping forward, the leader moves so quickly I don’t see his knife until it’s against the man’s face.
    The camera zooms in, and the man’s fear slices straight to my heart. His eyes are wide and frozen in terror. The knife scrapes a layer of skin off his cheek, and the Shredder laughs and drapes the skin onto his own chest like a medal. The crowd cheers.
    The backs of my eyes tingle with the threat of my curse. I can’t let my emotions take hold.
    The Shredders laugh and lunge at the man as the cowboy Shredder swipes the broadside of the blade across his biceps, adding a glistening layer of blood to his scabbed skin. I look away.
    My chest heaves as I try to draw air, and I rub my mom’s ring. I can’t let my curse emerge. Too many people around. This is what awaits me if I’m caught, what awaits my little brother if I don’t protect him.
    This is what happened to my father. Monsters like this killed my dad.
    I don’t care what he did; no one deserves this kind of death. Shredders are crazy and sadistic and don’t kill quickly. Some of their victims survive for weeks before theShredders finish tearing strips off their bodies and harvesting body parts for their nightmarish trophy displays.
    I could almost understand Shredders if they actually ate their victims, if they were starving out there and saw people as meat. But they don’t. Shredders live off the dust. They use the exed Haven employees for their amusement, and then leave their remains for the rats.
    I shudder. I may have eaten a creature that once gnawed human flesh.
    The exed man screams, and it’s all I can do to keep from tucking into a ball and wrapping my arms over my shins. I frantically rub my thumb on my ring. It’s not working, so I try to imagine my body flooding with icy light like the overhead bulbs at GT. But not just one light—hundreds, enough to erase my thoughts, numb my body, and freeze my heart. White space. White space. White space .
    I can’t find it.
    Jayma touches my back. “Are you okay?”
    I jump. I need to get out of here. Now. “Save me a place in line?”
    Without waiting for Jayma’s answer, without even looking at her, I run and push through the crowd that remains fixated on the screens’ horror show.
    Struggling to find a private place to recover, I spot a break in the ocean of bodies and burst into a dark alley I’ve never explored. From the look of the asphalt surface, it was part of a road BTD, but new walls have been built at each side, narrowing the alley to barely four feet across. At intervals, iron ladders hang down that must be the entryways to